Spirit Harvesting

Yes. All that is required is that the target has a Might score.

So if a magus transformed into a corporeal magical being, and was later stripped of their might for vis, would they be a member of the Order of Hermes again? And if so, would the person who stripped them be in violation of the code for having done so, even though they would not have been a member when they were a magical being?

These are social questions, for the tribunal to decide.
So it'll probably get political :wink:

Wy would the magus cease to be a member of the Order simply because he has transformed into a magical being with Might?

Because Magi are human and mortal while magical beings are not. Actually most of the RAW is that their status as being members of the order is "questionable", in part because it is generally assumed that by becoming a magical (or faerie) entity that their soul has passed on, in which case stripping them of their might could kill them (and potentially magical creatures as well).

While we're delving into politics: I don't recall any part of the Code that requires a member to be human.

Certainly testing it may well create a tribunal case and a ruling...

So while the Code does not provide any protection to a magical being who is not otherwise protected by a different clause, a magus who transforms into a magical being is covered by a different clause unless the transformation itself somehow invalidates their oath.

I never understood where that idea came from either, but it's very popular on this forum. It's certainly not hinted at in the descriptions of the paths to immortality in TMRE.

My own feeling is that if a Magus achieved, say, the quest for the Great Elixer pursued by generations of alchemists then the reaction of his fellow Magi would be "Teach us, oh great master, your secrets so we too can live forever" rather than "Let's render that fool down for a few pawns of vis".

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I imagine that the early Peripheral Code included something requiring that magi must be alive to belong to the Order, a response to the first time that someone showed up at Tribunal as a ghost. This might have developed from contentious allegations at Tribunal where a magus insisted he was still able to vote and participate while others might have argued that his votes did not count. The easy solution was to declare that not being alive meant one was not a member of the Order any longer.

Over the centuries that Quendalon lived on (and on) as Merinita Primus, I imagine this issue became more cloudy and resented. He was seemingly immortal, clearly not dead, and many suspected he was a faerie, but he was also a member of the Order and entitled to its protection. There may have been others like him, especially in Houses Bjornaer and Diedne, who through their arcane studies had changed their bodies so that they no longer had cause to fear the effects of aging. All of these Houses were especially unpopular among the Latin-based Houses as the beginnings of the Schism War began to foment, and I can imagine the Peripheral Code would have been aggressively modified to add "human" to the list of qualities a magus must possess, or possibly altered to specify "mortal" instead of "living."

Powerful magical beings are one of the few types of beings that the Code doesn't restrict magi from doing whatever they want to them. If a maga comes upon a mighty dragon or an ancient jinni, she can certainly treat it reverently and convince it to teach her its knowledge. Or she can blast it at leisure, or enslave it to do her bidding, or remove its magic altogether. So, I imagine that even without political reasons of votes cast at Tribunal, there are magi who look for reasons to accuse their sodales of having left the Order, so that they can take their stuff with impunity.

I'm thinking maybe, but at the same time it's equally possible the situation has never been sufficiently tested.

Sufficiently elderly beings such as living ghosts (or even regular ghosts) have a tendency to become more and more removed from day-to-day (or tribunal-to-tribunal) affairs. There's equally likely a tendency for such beings to either simply fade off into obscurity, or to create enough fuss that they meet a sticky end of some sort or another that's entirely legal within the Code - be it Wizard's War or just an encounter with the wrong sort of dragon.

From what I can tell most tribunals have clauses of some form or another for when a wizard's vote stops being valid due to that wizard having simply not shown up for a while. The Rhine has a really interesting case; and one that could get interesting when a PC attains the rank of master, gets given a voting sigil to use and then the original owner of said sigil shows up.

Which leads to an interesting situation. If a group of magi do indeed come across the living ghost of an ancient magus from many centuries ago who (as far as he is concerned) is still an Order member and just hasn't got around to contacting any redcaps for the last 150 years, they probably can render him down for vis. Did they violate the Code? Well... technically, but against someone everyone thought was dead anyway.

As a counterexample, consider 'retired' magi of the Rhine tribunal.

Regarding ghost magi, I think it's worth noting that any experienced necromancer can attest that the ghost of somebody is not that somebody, but rather just his/her spirit, a shadow of one facet of that person's personality vastly overblown into full-fledged obssession. The emotion or personal need that ties them to the world.

On a more metaphysical note, if I recall correctly when someone dies his/her soul departs for good, and what's left behind (if a ghost is formed) is just the mind, thus devoid of reason and intellect which are provided by the soul. The ghost can thus be said to be just a mind without a soul, and so its behaviour is fueled only by its five wits, not by true reason or intellect. Which explains a ghost's obssessive behaviour and general inability to act outside its fetters for lingering behind.

And that's assuming the ghost is a magic ghost. If we're talking about a faerie ghost, you could even argue it's not the original person at all but rather some incognizant faerie acting the role. And if it's an infernal ghost then it's clearly only the spirit of the dead person, as his/her soul remains in torment in hell, so all the above considerations about magic ghosts lacking reason and intellect apply. Even if the ghost is indeed magical in nature, it would need to be an apparition, as shades and spectres probably lack the mental coherence needed to concern themselves with hermetic legal matters such as continuing membership in the Order.

The closest thing you could probably get to a ghost that is at least similar to the original living person would be a Living Ghost created through the Hermetic Spirit Magic mystery. But the same chapter that explains how to become one also clearly states that "one’s protection under the Code of Hermes nominally ends at death", though it also states that "Living Ghosts are very rare, and the issue has never been tested at Tribunal." It also unambiguously states that the Living Ghost is nothing but a spirit, not a soul, though it is indeed "a free spirit" that can "retain full memory and form new memories normally, and may learn and change", and also "retains its will and purpose."

So, in short, I personally think it would be quite hard to argue for a dead magus' ghost to retain its membership in the Order in any Tribunal where a knowledgeable necromancer could be consulted about its true nature. Of course, as always, YSMV.

Disclaimer: All of the above should be considered under serf's parma, as some really interesting canon material on ghosts (IIRC) appears on Hermetic Projects, which I don't have around right now.

Further reading: Art & Academe pages 31-32, Realms of Power: Magic pages 115-118 (particularly the insert on page 117), Realms of Power: The Infernal page 36 (insert), Ancient Magic pages 33-34, The Mysteries, Revised Edition pages 70-72, Calebais: The Broken Covenant pages 35-36, Hermetic Projects.

I think this is probably the most relevant bit. The Order isn't in the habit of extending membership to non-human entities, and the number of magi who become non-human entities while remaining sufficiently engaged in Hermetic politics is so low that I very much doubt there's sufficient ruling on the matter.

There's no clause in the Code that says a dragon with the Gift could not be offered membership in the Order. There's a whole bucketload of tradition and cultural expectation, but not a law. Given the propensity of dragons with the Gift to pop up and actually care about Hermetic politics, this is probably why there's no law.

Were said dragon to be found, to complete its apprenticeship and to swear the Oath then it would presumably be afforded the same rights and protections of any other magus.

We have a Rat in our saga who's still technically a member of house Bonisagus. He publishes texts occasionally. Though it has to be admitted, he has never actually attended tribunal, so no-one outside the covenant knows he's a Rat.

The retired magi were missing and presumed dead and the ruling banned the use of their sigils by other magi. It's quite a stretch to apply that to a magus who actually shows up at Tribunal. How does one know that he or she has Might, anyway, short of using magic to scry, in defiance of the Code?

There was a story seed about exactly this, in the old 4th ed book, Land of Fire and Ice, where the players are encouraged to take on the local dragon's children as apprentices.

Bob

Probably depends on how well the magi understand Ablating. If all they know is you zealously hunt and destroy demons...

I thought they just left incorporeal vis behind. You might need something supernatural to see it, and you would probably need Rego Vim to move it, but at least its not something a peasant would wander off with or try and steal.

... Then you just get really unpopular or maybe even Marched for calling unnecessary demonic attention to the Order. There's a huge difference between killing a demon to defend yourself or protect other magi, which is certainly okay and often a highly laudable act, and searching out and hunting down demons who haven't bothered you or openly interfered with your interests.

But there's plenty of precedents in canon of demon hunters who do just that, and are held in high regard by the Order. The first one that comes to mind is the League of the Vigilant in the Theban Tribunal, though I'm sure there are plenty more.

To be fair, oft times by the time a demon hunter has brought the attention to his soldales which they would seek to avoid, he has himself already fallen in battle with said dark forces. Which makes a wizards march rather pointless.

Except for a Tytalus necromancer. :wink:

Just joking, really. :slight_smile: